


The Same Dream

by nbarker1990



Category: Shefani, The Voice (US) RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 22:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7732153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nbarker1990/pseuds/nbarker1990
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People keep telling him how strong he’s being, how he’s actually better off without her, and every single time, he wants to throttle whoever it is for being a condescending fuck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Same Dream

People keep telling him how strong he’s being, how he’s actually better off without her, and every single time, he wants to throttle whoever it is for being a condescending fuck. Because he’s not strong. And he most _definitely_ doesn’t feel better with his (it had taken far too long to get used to the singular, not ‘we’ and ‘us’, ‘our’ and ‘their’) lonely bed and his strangely empty house. 

Betty’s keeping him company, a warm, furry presence half-tangled in his sheets, but she’s not much of a talker and he needs to talk. Badly. He’s cried on more shoulders than he can count these past few months, both before and after he’d found out the full extent of what Miranda had done, but even though he now feels cried out, there’s this fierce need to unburden himself. He’s never been that restless a person, not like Adam is, but lately he’s been driving himself up the wall with how out of his skin he feels.

 

When his ringtone sounds, he hesitates to pick up his iPhone (facedown so he doesn’t have to think about yesterday, when he’d finally worked up the nerve to delete every single picture of her) at first. The divorce papers had been filed a week ago, and apparently that action had lit a fire under Miranda’s very shapely ass. At first, he’d read all the text messages from her, soaked up every last ‘I’m sorry’, ‘Please forgive me’ and ‘I miss you’. He hadn’t exactly been tempted to go running back to her but one night, after five too many drinks and a fog of melancholy that wouldn’t quit, he’d messaged back, told her that he missed her too. That had been a mistake, not ranking as high as the colossal mistake he’d made in freaking marrying the woman, of course, but still…

He groans, rolls over and reaches clumsily for his cell. Fine. He gives in. Tonight’s one of those particularly shit nights anyway, and he wants to indulge, to wallow in the wreck that is his life.

It isn’t what he expects. The moment he realizes what the small photo of Gwen means (he snuck it a few days ago on set, watching as she leaned forward to praise a singer, looking animated and ridiculously mesmerizing), he feels a lightness in his chest, an odd flutter that he guesses could be labeled anticipation. He’s been in survival mode for so long now that it feels strange, this sense of looking forward to something and not just trying to get through it. They’ve been e-mailing back and forth for the past week, but this is the first time she’s taken him up on his offer to text if she feels the need (or just wants to), and honestly, he’s curious what’s gotten her to this point.

Gwen’s an emotional person but she’s also been incredibly tight-lipped about the full extent of what happened in her marriage. The kids probably play a part, but he also suspects she feels what he does – embarrassment.

 

_hey. so you told me if I needed you…_

**I’m here. Absolutly.**

_The ex just made the dropoff and I don’t know how I feel._

**Did something weird happen or?**

_No. Nothing. That’s what was weird. I guess Im used to every conversasion being another fight or another revelation yknow?_

**Would that have been better tho?**  

_No of course not. It’s progress. Good thing. But its like we really are doing this yknow. Splitting. Sometimes it just hits me like a truckload of bricks and my brain blows up. Never expectd to b here._

**Ive already been thru this once and still managed to be naïve as fuck thinking it would last forever. Suckerpunched.**

_Ring me? Please?_

 

And so he does. At the sound of her voice, quiet and soft and vulnerable, he feels something in his chest clench, sympathy maybe, a desire to comfort definitely. An image forms in his mind, a flash of what it might be like to have her curled up beside him on his bed, and he blinks, surprised but not unpleasantly so.

“Wrong time to ask what you’re wearing?” he asks, trying to inject his tone with a levity he’s not currently feeling, wanting to cheer her up. She laughs and it’s so real, so unforced, that he wants to capture the sound so he can replay whenever he’s having a low moment.

“There’s never a wrong time to talk about clothes, cowboy. You know that. For the record, a tank top and sweats. Super classy.” 

“I threw away three shirts yesterday, y’know. Three. My wardrobe is shrinking by the minute.”

“Any reason or?”

Blake takes a deep breath, decides to go for it because if he can’t be honest with her, he doesn’t deserve a person like to her confide in, won’t ever earn her friendship.

“Blake?”

“She actually bought me them for Christmas. Sweet gift, nicely wrapped, attached to a nice card telling me how much she loved me. Got an expensive bottle of vodka too.”

“Didn’t throw _that_ away?”

“And waste a good drink? No, ma’am. I poured that one down my throat faster than she begged me to forgive her when I confronted her.” He pauses, tries to relax his grip on Betty’s coat because god knows he doesn’t need to turn his dog against him as well. “You know, I really did think we’d make it, that we were going in the same direction and wanted the same shit – til death do us part, kids, the whole thing. _Eventually_ on the kids thing, that was understood, but still, the same shit.”

 

There’s silence on the other end and he wonders if that’s it, if something in this conversation will be the thing to break whatever tenuous, fledging connection they have going on. He knows he’s being self-absorbed, that he keeps turning conversations about others into conversations about him and his own self-pity. It’s not a good look and he can’t seem to stop it.

“So,” he attempts, clearing his throat so he doesn’t sound quite so raw. “I’m sorry for that. This is about you, or it should be at least. You wanted to talk, right? Talk. I’m listening. I’m here for you.”

“I like hearing your story,” she admits quietly. “It makes me feel less alone.”

“You shouldn’t be. Alone,” Blake insists, feeling the truth of that in every bone of his body. One of the things he’d noticed very early on after meeting Gwen was how big her heart was: for her family, for the contestants, for everyone. He wonders if that kind of generosity of spirit drains you dry. He knows that he’s a fairly magnanimous guy but he doesn’t think he’s as fundamentally _nice_ as Gwen. And nice is underrated, frankly, something he’s come to appreciate more over the past few months as his own wife’s character had started to become more murky to him.

“I’ve thrown things out too. Last week it was a necklace he’d bought me for our 10th wedding anniversary. It’s like he made a mockery of that gift, y’know, by, well, by doing what he did.”

“You can say it, you know, to me?”

She makes a muffled, strangled sort of sound and it’s loud in his ear. Eventually, she takes a deep breath. In, out. “By cheating.”

“There, not so hard, is it?” But he knows it is.

“Every anniversary, I was surprised… Surprised that we’d lasted, that I still loved him, that he hadn’t tried to leave. He’d always been so restless, so not ready to settle. I guess when you’re able to have your cake and eat it too, there’s no reason to leave, though, right?” 

“Not unless you get caught.”

“Blake?” 

“Hmmm?”

“I never, I just could never have guessed that this - ”

“Would be your life right now? I know, sweetheart.” He blinks. Damn. Slow down, buddy…. Betty whines from beside him and he scratches her between her ears. Cute thing. “I’ll be back in LA tomorrow,” he says. “If you want to, I don’t know, catch up or something.”

 

He can hear rustling in the background, noise as she shifts. There’s a soft slide and then… Oh god. Is she in bed? He doesn’t ask. Can’t. Won’t. God, his head is so fucked. 

“Of course you don’t _have_ to,” he continues, racing through the words. “Just an idea and I know we can’t really just go have a coffee or anything but…”

“The kids aren’t here this week, if you wanted to, y’know, come ov - ” 

“I’d love to,” he says quickly, trying to reply before she can reconsider the offer. And she will, he knows she will. It’s selfish of him but he’s coming to rely on her – on her wisdom, on her advice, on the way she understands him and he her. He’s coming to need her smiles too.

 

And even more than the prospect of a future he’d never envisioned – one without Miranda – _that_ scares him.


End file.
